Dark Castle: Turn 31

 

Let's head straight to the battles.

The Caverns (Magic Phase):

This was a magic phase attack by two Sidhe Lords armed with Maces of Eruption, Vine Shields, and Red Dragon Scale Armor. The first one had to cast Blessing, Elemental Fortitude, Mistform, and Gift of Flight, while the second one cast Protection, Elemental Fortitude, Mistform, and Air Shield.

The battle ended quickly when one of the Sidhe Lords flew to my back lines and killed my commander after just a few turns, causing almost everyone on the battlefield to disintegrate. It's hard to be undead sometimes.

I don't like losing my sacred Knights, but it wasn't catastrophic. Interestingly, I moved an army into this territory this turn, so we have another battle in this province during the same turn.

The Caverns (Regular Phase):

This combat went much better, and my Knights managed to kill both Lords after several rounds of combat, though it took several turns to penetrate their defenses.

Eriu did invest a significant amount of gems in those lords (60), and I found 30 gems' worth of gear after the fight, including the very nice Vine Shields, for my trouble.

Namor:

We easily reclaimed Namor from Eriu with no losses.

Terrace Peaks:

Grave Giggler quickly dispatched Eriu's province defense and seized back our province. 

Deep Forest:

We took Deep Forest from Bandar log without a fight.

It's easy to overlook placing PD in provinces, but it's possible that Bandar Log is also experiencing economic issues and couldn't afford to set any up.

Bandar Log (fortress assault):

We assaulted Bandar Log's capitol this turn to gain some intelligence. He has quite a force that's going to be very scary to fight with lots of sacred Tiger Riders and his mages. Here is his pretender:

And this is what a blessed, buffed kitty looks like:

An important bit of info is that I only saw level 2 spells cast on his side besides anti-magic at level 4, which is a bit of a relief. 

Still, I'm not feeling confident at all about assaulting his fortress, but I order it anyway. I can't keep sieging forever and it's now or never before he gets more research online. I'll have ~750 units in my assault force, of which 81 are Lictors and 44 are Knights. 

I don't usually do this, but I ran a quick test of this battle in a single-player game, and I got my ass handed to me. However, in my test game Bandar Log had enslave mind and cleanings waters, which this Bandar log doesn't. It's a risk, and even if I win I'm going to take extremely high causalities, but it has to be done. 

On our site searching front we found the following in Forbidden Fields:

Woohoo. We doubled our nature income.

For our events we had the following:

Back to the Eriu front he's becoming a real problem in Panuonia, where he moved in a lot of additional units and there are now 240 sieging us and our wall integrity is now 26 out of 250.

I don't have anything in the area that can easily fight him off. I suspect I'll lose the throne on turn 33 unless a miracle happens. Definitely not great, but it's not the end of the world. 

It's critical that we keep pressure on Eriu and and let them know that we are not to be fucked with, so this turn attack the following provinces.

• Eriu in Troll Land with 98 units, including 10 sacreds. 
• Eriu in White Peaks with 65 units, including 5 sacreds
• Eriu in Cacevic Highlands with 65 units, including 5 sacreds
• Eriu in Malum with 65 units, including 5 sacreds
• Eriu in Glen of Wisom with Grave Giggler
• Bandar Log in Troll Woods with 63 units, including 5 sacreds

Here are our final moves:

Next turn is going to be pivotal for us. 

Dark Castle: Turn 30

 

Yikes. From the messages, I can tell that Eriu launched a full assault against me this turn. This makes sense since he has been ruthless in seizing territory, trying to capitalize on others' weaknesses, and with the bulk of my army in the south, it's a logical move.

Copper Canyons:

No surprise here. We easily took Copper Canyons from Bandar Log with minimal losses.

Bandar Log:

Our large assault force destroyed Bandar's Log province defense with very light causalities. Our Knights did a great job of hitting the rear commanders and helped end the battle quickly.

Troll Land

A Sidhe Lord, equipped with a 30-gem kit, easily demolished my minimal defense here. I had a Dusk Elder stationed, but fortunately, he had orders to retreat and was the only survivor. The lord wielded a Frost Brand, an ineffective weapon against us. It seems he intended this for someone else and is making do with what he has available.

Whiteport

Another Sidhe Lord, although with no equipment, took a shot at my high income province but we were able to force him to retreat without too many losses. The Sidh cast mistform, but my ghouls have magic claws that likely allowed them to damage him.

Panuonia

A moderate sized force from Eriu assaulted our Throne province. We didn't stand a chance against his 60+ sacreds and 5 tough thugs/commanders, but the force is barely able to dent our walls and knocked them down from 250 to 243 (thanks ghouls), but there could be more forces enroute. 

Cerulean Sea

Another Sidhe Lord equipped with a ring of water breathing attacked my water province and easily defeated us.

Alluvia

Another Sidhe lord attacked our underwater province. This time, he just had a ring of water breathing, but it was enough to take our minimal PD.

Zenthra

A Sidhe lord with no equipment easily defeats us in Zenthra.

In Delca, we seized the province from Bandar Log with no resistance.

You should always get PD...

On the intelligence front we saw the following battles:

Phaeacia attacked Marignon in White Waste and won without any losses:

I see that R'lyeh is about to assault the throne in Gray Forest:

I wanted to take this throne, but I would never be able to beat R'lyeh and especially not while I'm fighting Marignon and Bandar Log at the same time.

The player from Bandar Log suggested I should put him out of his misery, but I think he's goading me into attacking him. This strengthens my opinion that I should first probe his defenses. In Bandar Log's capital, we renamed our censor to Monkey Bait and sent him with a few troops for 5 turns to understand what tactics he will be using. I might launch a full assault next turn. I don't like my odds, but they will only get worse as time goes on. 

It's surprising that Eriu is raiding me so aggressively. Considering MA Ermor's fortresses and undead hordes, I would think this would be very difficult. I'm not very worried. In fact, MA Ermor is actually pretty good at raiding themselves, which Eriu might soon discover. I am testing a potential counter by deploying a few sacred units (3 lictors and 2 knights) in each territory, led by a priest. Preliminary testing showed promising results against his standard kit. Of course, he can adapt easily, but then again, so can I.

My geopolitical situation is not favorable, and I'm concerned about Ulm and my throne of bureaucracy. I'm deploying 177 ghouls and my Archbishop to reinforce. If Ulm attacks, I'll have trouble reinforcing due to my ongoing wars with Eriu and Bandar Log. However, being ganged up on in Dominions is something I'm accustomed to, so we'll see.

I'm slightly worried about Bandar Log obtaining Soul Slay, so I'm forging an amulet of antimagic to increase GG's MR to 24. Against a standard soul-slay caster he'd have 1.78%  of being killed per cast. If he gets spammed, he'd have a 50% of being killed after around 40 casts.

Dark Castle: Turn 29

 

Excellent. Our Palisade in Idenhorm completed.

We only had one battle in Delca:

I wouldn't ordinarily show the this battle, but I wanted to show that darkness was still in effect. This is important because it means my forces have a large advantage right now because darkness gives a -3 to attack and defense unless you are undead like me and have Spirit Site.

I'm not going to show the battles, but patrolling in Idenhorm rooted out three spies from Eriu, R'lyeh, and Phaeacia. Watching the battles shows me that my formation isn't set well because I had streamed some of them in over the past few turns.

It's always a good strategy to make sure you have a spy at least next to the thrones so you can see what's going on. This is what I started doing in earnest last turn.

Something mildly interesting is that darkness didn't show in the three battles, which is odd since darkness is supposed to be a worldwide event. Perhaps there's something different with discovering sneaking units vs. traditional battles?

This is important to understand because, based on worldwide darkness, I'm going to attack Bandar Log and assault his capital. My force has 533 units, which contains 44 Knights and 63 Lictors.

I also have a smaller reinforcement army attacking Copper Canyons to the North. This army has 311 units, which contains 10 Knights and 19 Lictors. South of my main army, I'm sending in Grave Giggler to attack Delca. I think there's a chance that Eriu will try to attack here as well, but I think GG will do well against him.

Let's check out our events:

I haven't seen that peasant event before. He's actually not that bad since he can help lead my undead, and he came with four fire drakes.

We recruit a priest in Kingdom of Dhara.

I didn't like having to do it, but we forge a Skull Mentor for 10 previous Death Gems. I was going to summon another Arch Bishop next turn, but I figure I need research more then a few extra Lictors.

Here are our final moves:

Dark Castle: Turn 28

Let's check out our battles

Terrace Peaks

Our raid against minimal Bandar PD went great. I'm not going to show the full battlefield since it was just against 1 PD, but suffice it to say we won.

However, Eriu sent in a thug at the same time to presumably seize territory from Bandar Log, and our forces bumped.

My small force of raiders were powerless to hurt the Sidhe Lord. 

The thug has excellent defenses with high defense, mistform, galmour, twist of fate, and air shield. He's also decked out in 30 gems of gear, so he's not cheap.

This guy would be very difficult for my chaff to take out. To overcome the vine shield alone the unit has to resist a 12 MR check per round or become entangled and not take any action. They have a chance to break out but that's based on strength. My chaff without support have about 10 MR -- 9 in Bandar Log's territory because of the magic scales -- and they have only  11 strength.

Against an actual army where I can bless some sacred troops -- especially my Lictors -- we would be able to take these guys out since they have high MR and strength. However, these thugs are extremely slippery with high stealth, which makes it extremely difficult to attack them.

If I get into an engagement with Eriu I should consider at least putting some indy priests with my forces along with a few sacreds to buff up their MR with protection and perhaps unholy power. 

I'm annoyed because this is the last of my raiders against Bandar Log. Also, Eriu is highly opportunistic and seizing territory aggressively. He also took Giant's Rest from Bandar Log. 

I did send an inquiry to Ulm about maybe working together against Eriu, but he sent me a cagey response that he'll see in a few turns after he finishes fighting TC.  

Idenhorm

This was a chaotic battle because the Spring Hawks were dropping unpredictably in the battlefield. Initially, they dropped in front of my army and we had trouble hurting them until my sacreds showed up -- thankfully they have magic weapons and could kill them relatively quickly. Still,  it took awhile to clean and we racked up a lot of attrition. Still, we were able to win and didn't lose any commanders and only 9 Knights

For our trouble we have the following throne:

I was hoping for a throne with independent mages. However, I am going to claim this immediately along with this throne in Panuonia.

I'm in fairly good position with three thrones in territory I own, and another one right on my border and owned by a neutral. Depending on the makeup of that neutral, I would either have to claim a level 2 or 3 province to win the game. That might be my best option to focus on and try to win this game before the late game because I won't be able to compete due to my lack of research. 

To facilitate this I'm sending scouts towards the other thrones to try to figure out who owns what and come up with a plan on which one(s) I'll need to seize.

Cloudcap Spires (fortress)

Bandar Log didn't have anyone here and we took relatively few losses when seizing it. However, it was still scary because our troops had trouble taking out the defenders on the walls because our chaff spearheaded the charge, and they don't do damage very quickly. I've said before that this is a scary situation for MA Ermor because if the battle goes too long we'll auto-route and all my mindless undead will disintegrate. The way to resolve that is to use higher quality troops, but that risks those troops if there are a lot of enemies in the fortress, so it's a tough balancing act.

There was nothing interesting in the fortress, e.g., independent mages, sites, etc., which is a bummer. It's very strange that Bandar Log hasn't had a single site in any of his territory, which implies he wasn't searching. 

For the first time in a awhile we have no attacks planned this turn. However, we are reinforcing our southern flank a bit in preparation for an all-out assault on Bandar Log:

Here were our events this turn:

This was a great turn for events. 2 sites, 10 death gems, 8 astral pearls, and a skull mentor! I give the skull mentor to one of my new druids in Shade Forest and set her to research.

Between our site searching and events here are all the sites we found this month:

If I hold on to Dubros we'll be generating 7 blood slaves a turn after I claim the Inner Throne. That works out quite well with my blood 8 pretender. I'm not going to be a blood power or anything, but it's going to open up options down the road.

We also had a worldwide event:

For our national event that book icon is now gone:

I thought I did everything right, but I must have missed something. I did move the original Dusk Elder out to search -- maybe that was it?

The Dusk Elder we found didn't have any earth or air. Ugh.

We summon an Arch Bishop this turn.